Re: Top 100 Novels... the Final Accounting

In article <48246C49.42A5609A@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> bill van wrote:
> > 
> > In article <amt724tdnnsnc8116t5hvm6p4rmkjt7rml@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> >  Nick Spalding <spalding@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > 
> > > Wally Sevits wrote, in <fvv624pv8dvu607h5no71rt23hjfa835if@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > >  on Thu, 08 May 2008 15:41:05 -0700:
> > >
> > > > I never met anyone else who read the Sot-Weed Factor.  I read it
> > > > because I previously read Giles Goat-Boy and had enjoyed that a
lot.
> > >
> > > I too read Giles Goat-Boy about forty years ago; it is still on the
shelf
> > > here, I must read it again.  I never read The Sot-Weed Factor.
> > 
> > I read both of them, once, about that long ago. Also Lost in the
> > Funhouse. I liked them too, but in the same way I liked an interesting
> > but challenging university course. That was good, but I don't think I
> > want to do it again real soon. More metaphors and allusions than you
can
> > shake a stick at.
> 
> & clichés?

That's selling him way short. My sense of Barth, many years after 
reading him, is that he constructed plots that paralleled more or less 
transparently a lot of classic mythology, and filled them with details 
that are clearly satiric of the modern world *and* its cliches. Also 
throw in a lot of humour about the form of the novel and the conscious 
presence of the author. That can make for a frustrating read, depending 
on your tastes, but he was way beyond dealing in cliches.

-- 
bill
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